There are a number of absurd situations in the World. One of them is the production and trade of weapons. There is general agreement that killing or hurting people as well as destroying property and infrastructure should not be allowed. Nevertheless it is obvious that the only purpose of weapons is to kill, hurt and destroy. Why is that arms trade is thriving instead of being vanished? Some of the reasons are:
1. It is big business. The hundred largest companies that produce arms worldwide, had sales for 385 billion dollars in 2009, equivalent to a third of Mexioco´s GDP.
2. It is a significant portion of countries expense budgets. Military expenditures all over the world in 2009 represented 2.7% of the World´s GDP equivalent to 1.5 trillion dollars. Only ten countries concentrate 75% of these expenditures.
3. Generate employment. Only in the United States the defense and industrial military complex generate more than 3 million employees.
4. They have legitamate usage. Weapons are used to protect countries of external threats or to suppress internal unrest. Police forces need them to combat criminals.
5. It's trade is legal. Production and trade of arms in general is legal, with some restrictions.
6. Promote innovation. Development of new arms has helped develop new technologies that are also used successfully for civil applications.
In spite of these reasons it is not acceptable, from an humanitarian point of view, the production and sales of instruments whose only purpose is to kill or hurt people. Neither acceptable that millions of people are employeed in arms production, acting as non-thinking machines oblivious to the consequences derived from the things they produce. Also absurd that other people participate as shareholders of companies in these dead seeking industries, looking only for profits without regard for the consequences related to the goods produced in those factories.
There are certain cases in which arms are needed. For instance, police forces need them to combat criminals. However this would not be necessary if criminals did not have access to weapons in the first place. But since there is great availability of weapons around the World, this situation provoques an arms race between criminals and police forces. Regarding countries and their defense needs, it is true that there are some regional conflicts that are fought around the world. However, with the end of the Cold War, the number of conflicts derived form the confrontation between the two largest military powers in the world, dissappeared.
Nevertheless, countries such as the United States have an enormous and unjustified military expenditure. For instance, in order to combat a few hundred talibans in Afghanistan, the U.S. has a presence of near 100,000 troops in that country. This, even though it is obvious that the talibans do not represent a threat to the U.S. and that the terrorist threat is very small if compared with the amount of resources being spent in order to contain that threat. What it's true is that these expenditures represent a great benefit for the U.S. industrial military complex.
I believe that a key element to improve the quality of life in the World and stop the harm and damage that weapons produce is to stop the production and trade of all type of arms and weapons. In order to achieve this I propose:
1. That shareholders of the companes that produce arms ask their Board of Directors to get out of the arms business and into other industries.
2. That shareholders sell their holdings of those companies that refuse to stop arms production
3. That employees of these companies realize that they are producing instruments of dead and seek employment in other industries.
4. That governments stop promoting the manufacturing and sales of arms in their countries and to other countries.
5. That defense budgets are reduced and that those resources are shifted toward programs that improve lives of people.
6. That the search for innovation is focused in other technology fields such as energy conservation, health improvement, combat poverty, nutrition improvement and so many others where innovation is likely to thrive.
7. That available weapons are destroyed worldwide.
8. That arms production and trade are made illegal in all countries.
I believe it could be done. Will you support it?
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Estoy en: www.heraldo.com/columnas/todo-terreno.html. Twitter: @octaviodiazg, Blog //octaviodiazgl.blogspot.com. Correo: octaviodiazgl@yahoo.com.mx.
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